A merchant may provide an online marketplace for the purchase of a variety of items by customers online or over the telephone. Such items may include products that are shipped directly to the customer, media that is downloaded by the customer, and services made available to the customer over the Internet. The items may be made available for sale by a number of sellers, with multiple sellers offering the same item. The sellers may submit the details required to list the items through the online marketplace to the merchant's online marketplace system. Such item details may include an identifier of the item, a manufacturer name and/or part or model number, an item description, one or more images for the item, a purchase price, availability of the item, and the like.
The online marketplace system may consolidate the details regarding a particular item provided by the various sellers by matching item identifying information, such as Universal Product Code (“UPC”) or International Article Number (“EAN”), manufacturer and part number, item title, and/or item description. The consolidated item details may then be placed in an item catalog and made available online for searching and browsing by customers wishing to purchase the corresponding items from the sellers. When a particular search of the item catalog is performed by a customer, the details of the matching items may be presented to the customer along with a list of the sellers offering each item, their corresponding purchase price and availability, and a mechanism for purchasing the item from the seller. The merchant and sellers are all benefited by providing as much information as possible regarding the items available in the item catalog in order to both drive customers to the online marketplace as well as persuade customers to purchase.
Having one or more images for an item in the item catalog may be a critical piece of information to cause a customer to click on the item to view and/or purchase the item. Items having one or more images may generate much higher click-through rates from search results to item detail/purchase pages than items without images. However, requiring the seller to provide an image with every item submitted to the online marketplace system may be difficult and require too much work from the seller. Therefore, some items in the item catalog may be presented to customers without images, resulting in reduced sales for the seller and reduced commissions for the merchant.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.